Last week, I lined up a tedious day of activities that I had been avoiding for months: going to the dentist, applying for a Social Security card for the new baby, and having the car inspected.

Motivated by the thought of accomplishing these chores before I was confined by the daily demands of dropping off and picking up three children at six different times, I rose early and left the house just as the children were waking up.

I got halfway to the dentist and realized with horror that my cell phone was dead. I must not have properly attached it to the charger the night before. There wasn’t even one little bar.

To say that I was beside myself was an understatement. All the phone calls that I was planning to return, all the appointments that I was going to make – everything would have to wait.

Using the pay phones nearby was an exercise in futility. On one corner, the slot was blocked. On the next, the phone accepted the quarter, but a recorded message immediately asked me to insert 25 cents.

What if someone needed me? What if my 2-year-old wanted to hear my voice? What if my husband had to ask me a question? What if the baby got a fever?

The real question is: What did parents do before cell phones? Those of us with young children have never had to. By the time I got my first phone in 1998, when my eldest was born, most people I knew already had one.

“I feel naked when I leave my cell phone at home by mistake,” a friend of mine with three children said. “As much as I might gripe about someone’s phone going off at the movies or the amount of time my husband spends on that damn BlackBerry, I can’t imagine my life without the technology. I worry so much less about my kids when I know that the people in charge of them can reach me.”

And what about how much more efficient we are with our phones in hand, particularly now that some of them are wireless? “My husband made me read a study that showed that even if you’re ‘hands free,’ you’re so much more likely to have a car accident if you’re on your cell phone,” a mother of four said. “For a while I tried listened to audio books. But after a few weeks I couldn’t take it anymore. I’m able to get so much done when I’m driving in the car – so much of the kind of stuff that’s so difficult to get done when I’m at home with the kids.”

In a taxi on the way to the Social Security office from the dentist, I barely knew what to do with myself. I looked at the maps of the city. I tried to figure out which airport I was really closest to. I tried to see if any new stores had opened along Madison Avenue.

It’s not only my dependence on my cell phone that has me worried. E-mail is another tool that most of us rely on daily. When I first began using e-mail, in 1996, I remember checking it once a week. Today, when I’m at home, I check at least every hour.

“I know I’m addicted,” a father of three said. “E-mail does make things so much simpler, but I really actually have a problem. I can’t go 10 minutes without checking my account. And forget not checking it when I take a vacation. I create one of those auto-responses, but I check it. I actually think I would get so much more accomplished if I just stopped checking it. But really, I can’t. Really.”

We are so busy setting limits on our children’s technological intake, but how many hours a day do parents spend on the phone? Do we answer it when we’re eating dinner? How many times a day do we check our e-mail? Do we too often Google people we’ve just met, or surf for hours checking out the latest styles on Bluefly.com and the bargains on eBay?

Perhaps we should examine the amount of time we spend on the computer and cell phone, and then honestly ask ourselves if that’s acceptable. What kind of message are we sending to our children? There is definitely a problem when toy stores sell noisy cell phones and pretend laptops so that toddlers can play at being mommy and daddy.

On my day without my cell phone, I wish I had had a memorable conversation with a taxi driver or found a moment to sit quietly and relax. But the only thing I remember is gnawing apprehension. So perhaps in the end, the only honest advice I can offer is to make sure that your cell phone is properly attached to its charger before you go to bed.